Westward Expansion

Westward Expansion, Native Americans, Industrialization

[Contributed by Amelie Baker]
Annotated Resource Library:

Resources

1) Zinn, Howard, A people's history of the United States : 1492-present.
New York : HarperCollins, c2003.

• Classic text that offers good readings to counter the narrative of textbooks
• Helpful in offering stories that illustrate issues of power throughout US History
• At times a more difficult and less organized reading format

For Unit 1- Industrialization read the chapter Robber Barons and Rebels p. 253-295

2) Zinn, Howard, Voices of a people's history of the United. New York : Seven Stories Press, c2004.

• Has lots of primary sources – speeches, documents,
• Offers a variety of sources and is very well organized
• Includes great short introductions to the readings

For Unit 1- Westward Expansion read chapter 7: Indian Removal p. 133-149, specifically use “The Cherokee Removal Through the Eyes of a Private Solder” or “Two Statements by Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce”

3) Zinn, Howard, A People’s History of American Empire: A Graphic Adaptation. NY: Metropolitan Books: 2008

• An excellent addition to the Zinn collection, includes drawings and interpretations of the same historical narrative of his People’s History
• A good resource for reluctant readers or ELL learners
• It may not include enough on every topic, but can be used to amplify textbook readings

· For Unit 1 – Monopolies and Railroads read the chapter The Internal Empire, specifically “Certain White Men” and “The Pullman Strike”

4) Takaki, Ronald T., A Different Mirror : a history of multicultural America. Boston : Little, Brown & Co., c1993.

• This is a very readable and enjoyable narrative about an alternative view of American History
• It tells the story of different groups and how they experienced American policies and government
• It may have to be cut down or used in pieces to be more accessible to high school readers

· For Unit 1 – Westward Expansion and Railroads read the chapter Toward the Stoney Mountain – From Removal to Reservation, specifically the final pages 101-103 that discuss the specific conflicts of Native American encounters with the railroads

5) Garcia, Juan, Harley, Sharon, and Howard, John, One Nation Many People: The United States Since 1876. Globe Fearon. c1996.

• Excellent textbook for ELL learners
• Has a good balance of breadth and depth for coverage
• Accessible format for easy classroom use
• Also available in Spanish

6) PBS – New Perspectives on the West
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/lesson_plans/
- http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/lesson_plans/lesson01.htm (Accessed Dec. 4, 2008)

• Has written out lesson plans that are great to adjust
• Has video, photos, and stories that can illuminate the topic
• Is well organized and can be used in parts or in the whole

7) Digital History Online
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/

• Specific chapters from the online textbook:
• Great reading supplements to the textbook
• One or two page readings that can summarize or teach in more concentrated versions
• For Unit 1:

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=32
Guided Readings: Closing the Western Frontier

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=38
Guided Readings: Industrialization and the Working Class

8) Peltier, Leonard, My Life is My Sun Dance.

• The Autobiography of a famous First Nation freedom fighter, writing about his imprisonment after the Pine Ridge Shoot-Out
• This is not about the specific historical moment but it does offer some poetic pieces about Native American culture and identity
• It can be used in the later unit on the 1960s and AIM

9) HBO Films, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

• A film version of Dee Browns book, it shows the tragedy of the attacks
• It can be used in snippets to teach about the conflict without going into detailed reading

10) HBO Films, Deadwood

• A series from HBO that documents the end of the “Wild West” in the Dakotas
• Watch out for terrible language, violence, and sex scenes, EDIT carefully
• Can offer a highly dramatized view of life in the West

11) NPR May 13, 2008 – “American Indian Schools Haunt Many” & “American Indian School a Far Cry from the Past”
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16516865
(Accessed Dec. 23, 2008)

• Has great first person narratives and personal stories about the Indian Boarding schools
• Has vivid pictures and recorded interviews about the experiences at the boarding schools
• The two stories offer a great contrast between the past and the present

* For Unit 1- Westward Expansion to examine the effects of policies on culture and helps students understand the losses inflicted upon the Native Americans

Expansion Westward/Tensions in the West

[Contributed by Jeremy Landa]

Background

Essential Question: Does where you live say anything about who you are?
Unit Objectives: SWBAT:
· Understand what it means to work effectively in groups.
· Analyze the Homestead Acts effect on Exodusters and homesteaders.
· Compare the perspectives of different groups in the West including Native-Americans, Cowboys, Exodusters, and Farmers and Miners.
· Understand the development of the transcontinental railroad and analyze its assistance in moving West.
· Understand reasons people move.
· Conclude whether where you live says anything about who you are.
Length: 5 days including the first day of the semester
Grade and Class Title: 10th grade US History II
Student Population: 25 – 31 students, inclusive classrooms, approximately 1/3 of the class has IEP’s or decoding difficulties
Guiding Massachusetts curricular framework: 10.4 Analyze the causes of the continuing westward expansion of the American people after the Civil War and the impact of this migration on the Indians. (H)

General Use Sources

-These sources can be used within the classroom.

1) Danzer, Gerald A., Klor de Alva, J. Jorge, Krieger, Larry S., Wilson, Louis E., & Woloch, Nancy. (1999). The Americans: Reconstruction through the 20th Century. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell.

2) McDougal Littell: A Houghton Mifflin Company. (1995 – 2008). The Americans Class Zone. Retrieved 12/08/2008 from http://www.classzone.com/cz/books/americans05/book_home.htm?state=MA

• This is the textbook and the textbooks website.
• The website is particularly useful. It has blank maps and primary source documents. The nice thing about the primary sources on this site is that many of them are useful and first-hand accounts of the people who are experiencing the problems or successes of American society.
• The website also provides brief chapter quizzes, audio readings of the information, links to many of the books sources and other important information.
• This is one of the richest resources I have found. Although it is not necessarily teaching out of text, it gives so many different options for the differentiation within the classroom – i.e. primary source, audio reading of the text, visual maps, etc. In particular, the maps and primary sources are quite useful.
• It is a great place to find resources when you are looking for primary source materials for your class or when you might run out of information.

3) Kansas Historical Society. (2008). Exodusters. Retrieved 12/08/2008 from AnchorAnchor
4) Kansas Memory Website. (2007 – 2008). The largest colored colony in America – advertisement. Retrieved 12/18/08 from http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/332/page/1
5) Kansas Memory Website. (2007 – 2008). All colored people that want to go to Kansas, on September 5th 1877, can do so for $5.00 – advertisement. Retrieved 12/18/08 http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/702/page/1

• Audio clip approximately 15 minutes in length. Accompanying documents from the website of the advertisements that are discussed within the podcast.
• Differentiates and is good for learners that need to hear things and see things. Won’t work as well for kids that struggle with decoding. Possibly consider creating a transcript of the session or cutting the learning into parts for the kids to process.
• The site has applicable local Kansas history that can be used as contrast for many periods of American history. They have podcasts and various links to other sites.
• The Kansas memory website offers primary source documents that correspond with the podcasts. Hence, the advertisements are visuals that can be used with the audio to give students a visual of what the advertisements of the time might have looked like.

6) History Channel Website. (1996 – 2008). American History Videos: Westward Expansion. Retrieved 12/08/2008 from AnchorAnchor (Look under the Videos: Era tab on the tool bar and click that to help find the videos or search for westward expansion on the website)

• Website source from the History Channel. The site has written, audio and visual movie clips on westward expansion among the countless other subjects it has in American History. Useful for the West is the video clips, which it currently has about 15 minutes of information about the Gold Rush. They are short two - three minute clips. They also have some general information on the history of the West.
• This website does not limit the user to just westward expansion topics. It has games, it has audio clips and it covers topics of both American and World History. It is a wonderfully rich resource.

7) Wounded Knee Museum Website. Exhibits. Retrieved 12/15/08 from http://www.woundedkneemuseum.org/main_menu.html
8) Cankpe Opi Tiyospayehttp – Wounded Knee Community. Wounded Knee Community website. :cankpeopitiyospaye.tripod.com/

• Both these sites present views of the Wounded Knee information past and present.
• There are some excellent exhibits, which may be usable for a Webquest or for less supervised scavenger hunt. The readings are pretty easy and the exhibits on the site are particularly good – the Wounded Knee Museum Website. The second site listed has some audio accounts of the Wounded Knee Community.
• Great also for a teacher to expand on their own content background.

9) Bower, Bert & Lobdell, Jim. (1999? sorry textbook I have is badly damaged). History Alive! The United States: Chapters 15 - 17. Unclear again where published. (Pp.201 – 245)

• Textbook.
• Useful for differentiated instruction when using the text. Reads at a middle school level, but can be utilized in conjunction with some of the History Alive! Experiential learning activities, which may contribute to higher cognitive learning.
• The book tends to follow the pacing guide from BPS pretty well and seems like a legitimate source especially when you need rich material with entry points for many students.
• Careful using the textbook though. I think – this is based on my observations of the History Alive! Activities - that the text is a collaborative with the activities. Therefore, it might be good to center units around the text and activities together or carefully plan, which material to use from the text.

10) Zinn, Howard, Konopacki, Mike & Buhle, Paul. (2008). A People’s History of American Empire: Ch I The Internal Empire and Ch II The Spanish-American War. New York, NY: Metropolitan Books.

• The book is a graphic interpretation from Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present.
• The book is 288 pages and includes interpretations on events at Wounded Knee and The Spanish-American War, both contributors to the Westward Expansion and Tensions in the West
• A great way to differentiate instruction; the text is easy to read and the art work is provocative and excellent. The stories are also historical interpretations so it is a great way to introduce historiography and the fact that history is drawn, written, and interpreted differently by different people.

11) Our Shared History: African American Heritage. (????). Stories to Tell: Stories of the Great Westward Expansion. Retrieved 12/18/08 from http://www.nps.gov/untold/banners_and_backgrounds/expansionbanner/expansion.htm

• This website shares three stories of westward expansion for African-Americans during the 1800’s. The three stories detail the life of George Washington Bush (ironic enough in name alone), tales of the Exodusters, and the Moses Speese Family.
• The readings are not overly difficult, but do require some prior knowledge about reasons for moving and understanding of segregation and discrimination of African-Americans of the time.
• All three stories have a strong sense of humanity that the students might be able to engage with. They also ultimately show success through perseverance, which is a great tone to the lesson.

12) Youtube Smithsonian Education. (2008). Westward the Course of Empire takes its way – Reading a historical painting. Retrieved 12/19/08 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yfkvIQuq7s

• This four-minute youtube clip is produced by the Smithsonian Education. The moderator is the senior curator of the American Smithsonian Art Museum.
• The major point of this clip is an examination of the famous “manifest destiny” painting titled “Westward the Course of Empire”. The clip is meant to discuss how one reads a painting.
• The material is difficult to understand so scaffolding is needed to help students understand the observations the curator makes. However, it is a great skill piece and could serve to introduce reading primary source historical paintings or photographs.

AnchorAnchor

13) The Gold Rush. (????). All About the Gold Rush. Retrieved 12/19/08 from http://www.isu.edu/~trinmich/allabout.html**

• This website is maintained on an Iowa State server.
• Webquest friendly or scavenger hunt site. It has short passages that tend to cover the people, places and events that were happening at the time of the California Gold Rush.
• Links to videos and other websites that relate to the movement westward at the time. The website responds and follows the PBS video timeline of the Gold Rush. Might be good to look into the Gold Rush.

14) Smithsonian Institution Source Website. (????). Impact of Westward Expansion on Native Americans and the role of the government. Retrieved 12/19/08 from http://www.smithsoniansource.org/content/dbqs/westwardexpansion/impact_westward_expansion.pdf

• A DBQ created by the Smithsonian Institution on the Impact of Westward Expansion on Native Americans and the role of the government.
• Great primary source documents that could be used to teach the conflicting perspectives of the Native American and the government intentions and utilization of the concept of Manifest Destiny. Possibly a great way to introduce DBQ’s to a class that might not have done them before. It is a complex way to introduce what will have to be done on the MCAS.

15) Lazarus, Emma. (1883). The New Colossus. Retrived 12/19/08 http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CAP/LIBERTY/lazaruspoem.html -- you can just google search it

• Primary source documented that aligns with state and Boston recommendations.
• Part of my pre-assessment, which will subsequently be used in the immigration unit.

Teacher Only Use Sources

– These sources should primarily be used for your own edification or for classes that have the ability

16) Deloria, Vine. (1985). Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties: An Indian Declaration of Independence. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press.

• Based on the excerpts I have read it seems like a legitimate source for a teacher to improve content knowledge. It seems to talk about the treaty making process and I think it could be a text that a teacher could use to consider empowerment through government associations.
• It is 300 plus pages so it might be considered for a summer reading.
• Down-side of the book is that it seems to focus on some past history, but really brings itself to the present – 1972 through today.

17) Turner, Frederick Jackson. (1920). The Frontier in American History. Recreated essays retrieved on 12/19/08 from http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper/TURNER/ - Also available on Google Books or amazon search

• Books for a teacher’s edification.
• It is 360 pages and discusses everything from settlement in the Massachusetts Bay Colony through social movements west.
• It is an older book, but based on the passages I have read it seems like it would offer an interesting perspective of the movements west not long after they happened. As some bait to read it, Frederick Jackson Turner wrote it while at Harvard University.